New species of Homo in Asia!

A paper published in Nature (A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines Florent Detroi et al., Naturevolume 568, pages181–186, 2019) today, tells us the following:

A hominin third metatarsal discovered in 2007 in Callao Cave (Northern Luzon, the Philippines) and dated to 67 thousand years ago provided the earliest direct evidence of a human presence in the Philippines. Analysis of this foot bone suggested that it belonged to the genus Homo, but to which species was unclear. Here we report the discovery of twelve additional hominin elements that represent at least three individuals that were found in the same stratigraphic layer of Callao Cave as the previously discovered metatarsal. These specimens display a combination of primitive and derived morphological features that is different from the combination of features found in other species in the genus Homo (including Homo floresiensis and Homo sapiens) and warrants their attribution to a new species, which we name Homo luzonensis. The presence of another and previously unknown hominin species east of the Wallace Line during the Late Pleistocene epoch underscores the importance of island Southeast Asia in the evolution of the genus Homo.

So here we have humans living in the Philippines 67 kya that differ from both Homo sapiens and the minute H Floresiensis.

It has a mosaic of archaic and modern features which highlights the presence of a wide diversity of hominins in Asia prior to the "Out of Africa" event. This surely combines Denisovan, Homo erectus and, perhaps H. habilis traits.

Asia will come up with plenty of surprises in the coming years, maybe they will debunk the Out of Africa theory...

This finding took place in the Callao Cave, which we reported in a previous post: Hominins in the Philippines 709,000 years ago: watercraft?

Let's wait for more discoveries.

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